mail: Bill Thayer Italiano Help Up Home previous: Chapter 15 This webpage reproduces a chapter of Old Fort Crawford and the Frontier by Bruce E. Mahan The State Historical Society of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa, 1926 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! This site is not affiliated with the US Military Academy.

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 p266  XVI
The End of Military Rule

With the departure of the regulars from Fort Crawford in the spring of 1849 traders and whisky venders, who had been living on money disbursed by them and the Indians, and even some good citizens believed that Prairie du Chien was doomed to an everlasting sleep. The light of other days seemed, indeed, to have faded. Those who had waxed fat for years on Indian annuities and the pay of the troops followed the tribesmen and soldiers to their new home. Population dwindled with startling rapidity, while empty, unpainted houses with windows broken and roofs fallen in, and abandoned store rooms gave the place a desolate appearance. For some years the important station of the American Fur Company had been abandoned, but Hercules L. Dousman, the old agent of the company, still lived at Prairie du Chien, and dispensed lavish hospitality from his palatial residence near the former site of the first Fort Crawford.601

But the removal of the troops, first regarded as a misfortune, came to be looked upon in a few years as a benefit to Prairie du Chien. A new immigration of settlers who had been attracted to the Prairie by the fertility of the soil replaced those who had disappeared in the wake of Indians and soldiers. And "where sloth, stupor and vice once ruled, now sturdy farmers, and busy mechanics" were "instilling a new life." A local editor declared, "Since the decline of the old regime, the latent resources have been explored and developed; and all real improvements,  p267 accomplished or in prospective, have been conceived since that time". And in conclusion he added that "the most fortunate and eventful days Prairie du Chien has ever seen were those which accomplished the removal of the Indians and troops — Government money and all."602

Many suggestions were made as to what use should be made of the buildings of Fort Crawford and the surrounding land. An editorial in the Crawford County Courier for May 26, 1852, urged that a petition be circulated for the donation of Fort Crawford by Congress to the Madison and Prairie du Chien Railroad Company to be used as a depot.​603 Nearly a year later the editor proposed that efforts be made to secure Fort Crawford and the military reservation for a college. The field immediately surrounding the fort could be made into a public park; "laid off tastefully, and decorated with shrubbery, it would make a place which the eye would delight to look upon; a beautiful and pleasant summer retreat." If the whole property should be granted by the government for a college, the land not included in this park might be laid off into village lots and sold. The proceeds from such a sale would provide a liberal endowment and furnish means to make the alterations necessary to convert the fort into a seminary. Little alteration, it was thought, would be necessary, and a college would not only be a credit to Prairie du Chien but a great attraction, and a source of pecuniary interest to the citizens.604

Once more, however, Fort Crawford was destined to reëcho to the tramp of marching troops and the sound of arms. In 1855 reports that two bands of Winnebago Indians under Chiefs Dandy and Little Hill had left their home in Minnesota and were on their way back to Wisconsin  p268 created considerable apprehension among the settlers in and about Prairie du Chien. Further reports indicated that the Indians were hostile and were committing serious depredations upon white settlers, stealing horses and cattle, entering homes, and carrying off provisions. Henry Dodge, then in the United States Senate from Wisconsin, obtained a promise that troops would be sent to protect the settlers and to force the Indians to return to their country.605

Accordingly in October, 1855, Brevet Lieutenant Colonel E. R. S. Canby moved down to Fort Crawford from Fort Snelling with Companies B, F, G, and H — eleven officers and two hundred and forty-seven men — of the tenth Infantry. On December 3, 1855, Brevet Colonel C. F. Smith relieved Colonel Canby in command of the post.​606 The troops remained at Fort Crawford until June 9, 1856, when, the Indian scare being over, they left on the steamer War Eagle for Fort Snelling.607

Nor were the people of Prairie du Chien sorry to see them go. The editor of the Courier commented on the departure of the troops as follows: "As they marched past our office to the boat, they appeared an able body of men. We wish we could speak as well of their morals as their looks. The officers are gentlemen, but the privates have been too much given to drink. We hope that Fort Crawford will not be occupied as a garrison much longer, but that the lands now occupied by the government, will soon be thrown into the market. There is no more need to preserve these lands, than to reserve Fort Howard, at Green Bay, and the shutting out of settlers from so large a tract, will inevitably make a divided interest between Upper and Lower towns, where all should be one and indivisible."

 p269  Prairie du Chien had been a busy place for the preceding few days with the removal of stores and provisions from Fort Crawford to the War Eagle. And when the garrison, then consisting of nine officers and one hundred and fifteen men, left the levee on their trip up stream, the editor wrote, "although we wish them well, we sincerely hope with the Poet, that —

On the day after the departure of the troops the sheriff of Crawford Creek demanded possession of the fort from the caretaker on behalf of Ira B. Brunson, B. W. Brisbois, and Cyrus Woodman, who had recently won an ejectment suit against the late commandant, Colonel Smith. Upon the watchman's refusal to surrender possession of the keys to the gates, the sheriff took other means of forcing an entrance, and left the three claimants in possession of the property. This unusual act of a civil officer taking a fort away from a representative of the government was the culmination of an effort to get possession of the property which had been under way for years.609

As early as 1853, Mrs. Emeliaº R. Hooe, widow of the late Major A. S. Hooe, in a letter to Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, warned him of a plot on the part of certain local citizens to get possession of Fort Crawford and the surrounding land. As agent in charge of government property at Prairie du Chien she felt it her duty to call the attention of the War Department to the matter.​610 Indeed, a well laid scheme had been arranged to take this property away from the government. As Mrs.  p270 Hooe predicted, a formal claim to all the land which had been occupied for military purposes at Prairie du Chien was made by Ira B. Brunson and James D. Doty in a letter from the former to the Secretary of War, dated December 8, 1853. Doty and James H. Lockwood had been the original grantors of the land to the United States in 1829, but Brunson had acquired Lockwood's interests in the tract. Brunson and Doty based their claim on the grounds that the deeds from Doty and Lockwood to the United States were void because no law had been passed by Congress authorizing the purchase by the War Department; and furthermore, that these lands, which had been acquired solely for military purposes, reverted to the original owners as soon as the government ceased to use them.611

The authorities at Washington ignored the above claims, and in the meantime B. W. Brisbois acquired half of Brunson's alleged rights to Lots 33 and 34, the tracts in controversy, while Brunson himself took over Doty's interests in Lot 34. Thereupon Brunson and Brisbois started an ejectment suit against John J. Chase, a disinterested tenant in the fort, for all of the military tract except the •eighteen acres on which the various buildings of the fort stood. As soon as notice of the suit was filed Mrs. Hooe informed the Secretary of War and Major D. H. Vinton, quartermaster at St. Louis, of what was under way.612

The case came up for trial in the November term of the Circuit Court in and for Crawford County, Wisconsin, where a jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, Brisbois and Brunson. At once the attorneys for the United States moved that the verdict be set aside and a new trial granted. The court ruled in favor of the motion,  p271 and directed that the case be continued until the May trimester of court in 1856.613

Meanwhile the reoccupation of Fort Crawford by troops from Fort Snelling placed an unforeseen obstacle in the way of the acquisition of the property by Brunson and Brisbois. Nothing daunted they proceeded with their ejectment suit against Chase in the May term of court; and in coöperation with Cyrus Woodman, who had acquired a half interest in Brunson's claim, they started another ejectment suit against Colonel Smith, himself. In the second trial of Brunson and Brisbois against Chase, they were again successful; and likewise in the suit against Colonel Smith, the plaintiffs received a favorable verdict from the jury. As long as four companies of the Tenth Infantry occupied the barracks it was, however, impossible for the new claimants to seize their property. But immediately upon the departure of the soldiers for Fort Snelling in June, Brunson, Brisbois, and Woodman, aided by the county sheriff as already narrated, took forcible possession of the property from the watchman left in charge.614

The government did not consider the findings of the Wisconsin court binding, and continued to leave a caretaker at Fort Crawford. But as the post was not needed for military purposes the pseudo owners were permitted to do as they pleased with the property. They rented out quarters in the fort to new arrivals and others in the village, and proceeded to demolish part of the buildings, and carry away the material for their own use. When Major Thomas W. Sherman arrived to examine the condition of Fort Crawford in the spring of 1857 this wanton destruction of government property aroused his indignation. He reported that the alleged owners were represented  p272 by Rufus King who collected rent from some sixty families. Although the government agent still occupied quarters in the fort he was powerless to stop the damage being done to the property. The board fence around the fort had already been removed as well as the plank flooring of the stable lofts. The siding on the stable had been partially removed, the hospital, woodhouse, and log building nearby entirely demolished, and all of the solid picketing of hewn timber around the north end of the fort had been taken away. In addition to this vandalism ninety‑two large bunks, twenty-nine mess tables, and twenty-nine benches had been destroyed. Furthermore, great injury had been done to shrubbery, bushes, trees, walks, and plats outside the fort; while inside the quadrangle general damage had resulted from the destruction of windows, casings, doors, ceilings, floorings, gates, piazzas, walks, and parade grounds. Sherman recommended the immediate ejectment of the occupants, and a suit for damages to cover the wanton destruction of the property of the United States.615

No action, however, was taken by the government, and the alleged owners continued to use the fort as an apartment house, and to hesitate not at all in the further appropriation of its contents for their own use. By the fall of 1857 in addition to the tenants occupying quarters in the fort, several workshops had been started in the barracks, and a boarding house had been opened for the public. In the Prairie du Chien Leader for February 6, 1858, a writer signing himself "Old Crawford" proposed that the fort should be dismantled and the stone used to build a courthouse, jail, and offices. "The Old Barracks", he said, "are found to be fast tending to a state of ruin. The wood work is so decayed, generally, as to require  p273 immediate and extensive repairs, or they will soon become uninhabitable. The stone walls are so cracked as to make it extremely doubtful whether repairing would pay for the outlays and expense." At any rate, he added, "the growth of the town will soon demand the removal of that unsightly mass of stone and mortar, and the building of something more creditable to the place it occupies." A new courthouse occupying the site of Fort Crawford, and a park planted with trees laid out around it would be an ornament to the place, he thought, as well as a convenient location for transacting public business. The present claimants who had ousted the United States would not object to such a proposal, he argued, as the erection of public buildings on this site would enhance the value of the remainder of their lands. "Old Crawford's" appeal, however, apparently went unheeded.616

Strenuous efforts were made by the alleged owners of the Fort Crawford property to prevail upon the Secretary of War to settle the controversy between them and the government either by accepting six dollars and a quarter per acre for the •nearly two hundred acres involved, or by leaving the question of owner­ship to arbitration. Such an appeal was made in person by Brisbois in the spring of 1858, but without success.617

At this point in the story Mrs. Hooe succeeded in blocking some of the plans of Brunson and Brisbois in their efforts to secure full title to the Fort Crawford property. Upon her retirement from the position of United States agent for Fort Crawford in 1853, Mrs. Hooe had been allowed by the government to take up her residence in the former quarters of the commanding officer, rent free. In the late fall of 1858, Brunson and Brisbois served notice on Mrs. Hooe to quit the premises and to surrender  p274 possession of it on June 10, 1859. When June came she refused to comply with their demand, and was summoned before a justice of the peace where the decision went against her. Appealing the case to the district court she succeeded in getting the decision reversed, and was left in undisputed possession of the commandant's home.618

Once more, in the spring of 1860, Brunson and Brisbois appealed to the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, for a settlement of their claim to the Fort Crawford property. On this occasion they proposed that one arbiter be selected by the Secretary of War, and one by themselves. If these two did not agree, they were to select a third, and the decision of the arbiters was to be subject to approval by Congress, if necessary. This was agreed to by the Secretary of War, who chose Governor A. W. Randall of Wisconsin to represent the United States. Brunson and Brisbois selected Timothy O. Howe of Green Bay as their arbiter, and the decision was left in their hands.619

But the Civil War began before any decision had been reached, and the matter was held in abeyance. Once more Fort Crawford was used for military purposes. A little over a month after the firing on Fort Sumter the State of Wisconsin leased the property "with all the land and appurtenances thereto" for the use and purpose of quartering the troops "of said state therein, said lease to continue so long as the State shall require said property for said purposes".​620 Fort Crawford became the rendezvous for soldiers enlisting in the Thirty-first Wisconsin Infantry, two companies of which were composed of Crawford County volunteers, until the headquarters of that regiment was moved to Racine in November, 1862.​621 In April of that year Mrs. Hooe had written Secretary  p275 of War Edwin M. Stanton that the fort property was rapidly going to destruction through the vandalism of the claimants. The stone walls were being pulled down and removed, the soldiers' graves were being desecrated, and the fences were being taken down and sold. She hoped that the government would act in this matter and put a stop to "Northern thieving" before it was too late to save the buildings. The large and roomy hospital was still untouched.​622 But the stupendous task of prosecuting the Civil War left Stanton no time to heed her plea. For a period in 1864‑1865 Fort Crawford was occupied by Provost Marshal John G. Clark with an enrolling commission to secure troops for short time service, and it was also used as a hospital. This was the last time Fort Crawford served any military purpose.623

In the meantime another controversy had arisen over the disposal of the Fort Crawford Military Reservation across the Mississippi in Iowa. This tract, which extended •about six miles east and west and •three miles north and south, contained •some 8000 acres of prairie and timber land. It had been set aside by the government as a farm and garden plot as well as a source of timber and firewood for Fort Crawford.​624 Because of his knowledge of the region gained while stationed at Fort Crawford and Fort Atkinson Henry M. Rice of Minnesota was selected as a special agent to sell this property by the Secretary of War. Rice received his instructions in April, 1857, and after due notice to those concerned, held a sale at Prairie du Chien late in May. Inasmuch as a large part of the tract was already occupied by settlers who had squatted upon it as soon as it was no longer used by the garrison at Fort Crawford, Rice sold at this time only the unoccupied and unclaimed portion of the tract.  p277 He recommended to the Secretary of War that the settlers who had made improvements on their claims be allowed to purchase their land at the government fee of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre plus a small sum to defray the expenses involved in locating their claims and holding the extra sale.625

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The Fort Crawford Military Reservation [A larger, fully readable version opens here (570 KB).]

As soon as his plan received the approval of the Secretary of War, Rice sent a notice to the Iowa settlers to meet him at Prairie du Chien late in December to purchase their claims. On December 19, 1857, Rice was elected United States senator from Minnesota, and on his way from St. Paul to Washington, stopped at Prairie du Chien to complete the sale of the Military Reservation. A uniform charge of twenty-five cents per acre was added to the government price of one dollar and a quarter to defray the expenses involved in the transaction, all of which seemed at the time perfectly agreeable to the purchasers. They were glad enough to secure title to the land which, had it not been for the course taken by Rice, might have been grabbed up by speculators at the auction sale in May.626

No sooner, however, had the credentials of Mr. Rice as the Senator-elect from the new State of Minnesota been presented to the Senate, than Senator James Harlan of Iowa presented a communication from a number of settlers on the Fort Crawford Reservation which alleged that Rice was guilty of fraudulent practices in the sale of the territory to them. Four specific charges were made — that Rice had required them to pay one dollar and a half per acre but had receipted to them for only one dollar and a quarter per acre, and had refused to give them a receipt for the extra twenty-five cents; that his clerk had charged certain settlers from ten to eighty dollars  p278 to enter their claims, sums which Rice had received corruptly; that he had failed to give them reasonable notice of the time of the sale, and that many were thus compelled to borrow money at exorbitant rates of interest in order to purchase their claims; and finally, that Rice had actually defrauded one settler of his right to purchase his claim. This precipitate action of the Senator from Iowa aroused a storm of criticism in the Senate, and despite the charges Rice was given his seat.627

Rice asked that a committee be appointed to investigate the charges and pledged himself to resign from the Senate if the investigation disclosed anything that would impugn his motive or his action in selling the Reservation in accordance with his instructions from the Secretary of War, and for the best interests of the settlers. If Senator Harlan, he said, had investigated the report of the Secretary of War concerning the sale he would have found that there was not a word of truth in the charges.628

Accordingly a committee was appointed to investigate the charges against Rice, and after listening to witnesses on both sides of the question reached the conclusion that Rice was innocent. The evidence taken did not support the imputation of fraud and, indeed, it appeared that the alleged dissatisfaction of the settlers was the work of disgruntled speculators. When the committee reported in favor of Rice, Senator Harlan, who had been instrumental in securing the investigation, expressed himself as entirely satisfied with the outcome.629

In due time the United States regained complete control of the Fort Crawford property at Prairie du Chien despite the persistent and almost successful attempts of Brisbois and Brunson to enforce their claims to it. On November 17, 1864, the Acting Commissioner of the General  p280 Land Office, by order of the War Department, offered for sale at public auction at La Crosse the land belonging to the Fort Crawford reservation which had been subdivided into town lots.​630 The War Department, however, retained possession of Fort Crawford itself, and kept a watchman on the premises until it was transferred to the Department of the Interior in 1867.​631 During the next year that part of the military tract remaining unsold was put up at auction, and the plot containing Fort Crawford became the property of John Lawler.632

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The Fort Crawford Tract Divided into Town Lots [A larger, fully readable version opens here (420 KB).]

The new purchaser, who took up his residence in the commandant's former home, felt that a school would be a fitting successor to the old fort. In 1872 the first building of Saint Mary's Academy, a school for girls, was erected on the site of the officers' quarters of Fort Crawford. In time a splendid set of buildings replaced the dismantled and abandoned ruins, and the school, making steady progress from humble beginnings under the direction of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, became in time Saint Mary's College and Academy, then Saint Mary's College.​633 On the spacious campus were left a few relics of the military occupancy of the site. Beneath shady maples was placed a strong-barred prison window behind which captured Indians and offending soldiers had chafed at their imprisonment. At the end of a paved pathway there remained a sentinel post where youthful pickets while on guard had paced to and fro through the long hours of the day and night.634

Courtesy of W. S. Hoffman The Sentinel Post	Courtesy of Saint Mary's College The Prison Window

Today these few relics, a crumbling corner of the old hospital now preserved and marked by the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the military cemetery are the sole reminders of Fort Crawford. This little cemetery stands on a knoll north of  p281 the site of the commandant's home. It is now a well-kept park with a wide graveled walk leading up to it, and an ornamental iron fence surrounding the grounds. The gates are unlocked and the visitor may wander among the graves to read the fading inscriptions and pay a silent tribute to the men and women who forfeited their lives in preparing the way for settlement of southwestern Wisconsin and northeastern Iowa.

Courtesy of W. S. Hoffman Fort Crawford Military Cemetery

Most of the graves are marked "Unknown", but on the highest elevation of the mound are seven walled‑in tombs and an eighth nearby with an inscribed stone slab lying prone above each of them. Here is the grave of Colonel Willoughby Morgan, long time commandant of Fort Crawford, who died on April 4, 1832, just prior to the stirring scenes of the Black Hawk War. Not far distant are the graves of Lieutenant John Mackenzie, who was killed at the fort in 1828; and Captain Edgar M. Lacey, who died at Fort Crawford on April 2, 1839. Two other inscriptions tell the story of girl brides who left eastern homes to share the privations of wilderness life with their soldier husbands. Their days of happiness or loneliness must have been short for both died at fort in their early twenties.635

To the visitor at Prairie du Chien who has a feeling of sympathetic interest in the story of the Upper Northwest, the ruins of the old fort, the prison window, the sentinel post, and the rows of well-kept graves in the military cemetery bring to his mind a train of events — episodes in the colorful pageant of the Upper Mississippi. One thinks of wilderness days when the untamed savages roamed sovereigns of the wild and drove their light canoes upon the broad surface of the mighty Mississippi, revelling in the fancied security of their power. One  p282 recalls the coming of explorers and black-robed missionaries; and in their wake the eager trader who unslung his packs and spread his gaudy wares before the eyes of astounded natives. Here was the neutral ground where tribes were wont to meet on friendly terms to exchange the hard-earned fruits of the chase for the tobacco, whisky, blankets, trinkets, arms, and ammunition of the newcomers to the Prairie.

There passes in review the struggle for mastery between the English and the French on the east side of the Mississippi, and between England and Spain for control of the fur trade west of that highway of commerce. In turn come the short but vivid scenes of the war of 1812, the erection of Fort Crawford, impressive Indian councils, Indian alarms, wars, the Black Hawk tragedy, and the inevitable dispossession of the Indian of the prairies, streams, and woods he loved.

The arrival of the pioneer settler with his ox‑team, plow, and covered wagon sealed the fate of the Indian, and foredoomed the abandonment of Fort Crawford. A visitor, however, to the "Heights" above McGregor, Iowa, may look across the isle-strewn expanse of the Mississippi, and as the sun dips from a limpid sky into a gold-washed world to the west, and shadows half obscure the houses of Prairie du Chien, transform in imagination distant buildings into the outlines of Fort Crawford. Morning, though, dispels the illusion. A modern city occupies the site of the picturesque scenes of long ago, and Fort Crawford with all its attendant events lives only in memory.

Courtesy of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin The Remains of Fort Crawford

The Author's Notes:

601 The Crawford County Courier, May 19, 1852, May 17, 1853; The Iowa Standard, September 15, 1847.

602 The Crawford County Courier, May 19, June 2, 1852, May 17, 1853.

603 The Crawford County Courier, May 26, 1852.

604 The Crawford County Courier, May 10, 1853.

605 Durrie's The Early Outposts of Wisconsin, annals of Prairie du Chien, p13.

606 Post Returns, Fort Crawford, 1831‑1856, October, 1856, in the Adjutant General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

607 Post Returns, Fort Crawford, 1831‑1856, January to June, 1856, in the Adjutant General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

608 The Prairie du Chien Weekly Courier, June 12, 1856; Post Returns, Fort Crawford, 1831‑1856, "Headquarters Battalion 10th Inf. Steamer War Eagle, Miss R., June 9, 1856", in the Adjutant General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

609 The story of the attempt on the part of three citizens of Prairie du Chien to get possession of Fort Crawford and the surrounding tract is based on letters and documents in the "File Record on Old Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin" in the office of the Judge Advocate General, War Department, Washington, D. C. For the statements in this paragraph see the letter from Major D. H. Vinton to Major General T. S. Jesup, Bundle A, p71.

610 Emelieº R. Hooe to Jefferson Davis, August 14, 1853, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle A, p68, in the Judge Advocate General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

611 Abstract of title to farm lots 33 and 34 in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle B, pp1, 2; Brunson to Davis, December 8, 1853, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle A, pp69, 70, in the Judge Advocate General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

612 Abstract of title to farm lots 33 and 34, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle B, pp1, 2, 3; Hooe to Davis, February 3, 1855, Hooe to Vinton, March 6, 1855, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle A, pp66‑68, in the Judge Advocate General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

613 Verdict of jury, motion for a new trial, and the order of the court in the case of Ira B. Brunson and B. W. Brisbois against John J. Chase, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle A, p34, in the Judge Advocate General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

614 Vinton to Jesup, June 14, 16, 1856, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle A, pp60, 71, 76, in the Judge Advocate General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.; copy of ejectment record of Ira B. Brunson et al. vs. John J. Chase et al. in the office of the clerk of the Circuit Court for Crawford County, Wisconsin.

615 Brevet Major T. W. Sherman to D. J. H. Upham, U. S. District Attorney, May 21, 1857, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle A, pp81‑83, in the Judge Advocate General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

616 The Prairie du Chien Leader, September 19, 1857, January 30, February 6, 1858.

617 Brisbois to Secretary of War John B. Floyd, March 17, 1858, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle C, p1, in the Judge Advocate General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

618 Hooe to G. W. Jones, November 25, 1858, April 21, 1862, Brisbois and Brunson to Hooe, November 29, 1858, Hooe to Secretary of War C. C. Washburn, June 16, 1859, Hooe to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, April 21, 1862, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle A, pp88, 45, 86, 87, in the Judge Advocate General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

619 Brisbois and Brunson to Floyd, April 30, 1860, Floyd to Brisbois, May 18, 1860, Brisbois and Brunson to Floyd, May 30, 1860, Brisbois and Brunson to Floyd, September 6, 1860, Floyd to A. W. Randall, Governor of Wisconsin, October 27, 1860, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle C, pp5, 2, 6, 9, 4, in the Judge Advocate General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

620 File 266, copy of the lease in the MSS. Collection in the library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

621 Tuttle's An Illustrated History of the State of Wisconsin, p443; Prairie du Chien Weekly Courier, November 20, 1862.

622 Hooe to Stanton, April 21, 1862, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle A, p85 in the Judge Advocate General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

623 Viele's Prairie du Chien Annals, 1864, 1865; History of Crawford and Richland Counties, Wisconsin (1884), pp527, 528.

624 Prairie du Chien Weekly Courier, May 21, 1857; Senate Reports, 35th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. II, No. 314, pp11, 12.

625 Senate Reports, 35th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. II, No. 314, pp29, 30; Rice to Floyd, June 10, 1857, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle F, pp1, 2, in the Judge Advocate General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

626 Congressional Globe, 35th Congress, 1st Session, Pt. III, p2075; Prairie du Chien Weekly Courier, May 27, 1858.

627 Congressional Globe, 35th Congress, 1st Session, Pt. III, pp2075‑2079.

628 Congressional Globe, 35th Congress, 1st Session, Pt. III, pp2079, 2123.

629 The Prairie du Chien Weekly Courier, June 12, 1858; Senate Reports, 35th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. II, No. 314, pp1‑31; Congressional Globe, 35th Congress, 1st Session, Pt. III, pp2123, 2163, 2823.

630 History of Crawford and Richland Counties, Wisconsin (1884), p352.

The plat of the Fort Crawford Military Reservation at Prairie du Chien on page 279 showing its subdivision into town lots was made from a photographic reproduction of a drawing in the File Record of Old Fort Crawford in the office of the Judge Advocate General, War Department, Washington, D. C.

631 D. N. Rucker, Acting Quartermaster General, to O. H. Browning, Secretary of the Interior, January 10, 1867, and Thos. S. Wilson, Commissioner of the General Land office to D. N. Rucker, February 15, 1867, in the File Record, Fort Crawford, Bundle D, pp5, 6, in the Judge Advocate General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

632 Abstract of Record Title to the Fort Crawford property, No. 17.

633 Information from the Secretary of Saint Mary's College. An illustrated booklet Historic Saint Mary's College Prairie du Chien Wisconsin tells in verse the interesting story of the evolution of this school for girls from an academy to a college.

634 Based on descriptive paragraphs in Historic Saint Mary's College Prairie du Chien Wisconsin.

635 The other tombs are occupied by the remains of Thomas P. Street, son of Joseph Montfort Street, Ann T. Foot, wife of Post Surgeon Lyman Foot, and Gwin Thlean,º wife of Lieutenant Colonel John Green. The girl brides were Gwin Thlean,º wife of Lieutenant W. M. D. McKissack, and E. Letitia, wife of Captain J. R. B. Gardenier.

Colonel Willoughby Morgan who at different times served as commanding officer of Fort Crawford entered the army from Virginia as a captain in the Twelfth Infantry, April 25, 1812. He was promoted to the rank of major in June, 1813;º and at the close of the War of 1812 was retained in the army as a captain in the Rifle Regiment. He was made a major on March 8, 1817,º lieutenant colonel, November 10, 1818, and colonel on April 23, 1830. Colonel Morgan died at Fort Crawford, April 4, 1832. — Heitman's Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, Vol. I, p726.

Lieutenant John Mackenzie entered West Point as a cadet from North Carolina, August 25, 1813. Upon his graduation he was appointed a second lieutenant in the Eighth Infantry, July 1, 1819. He was transferred to the First Infantry in June, 1821, and received his commission as first lieutenant, November 18, 1822. As narrated in the text Lieutenant Mackenzie was killed by a soldier at Fort Crawford, September 26, 1828. — Heitman's Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, Vol. I, p672.

Captain Edgar M. Lacey entered West Point as a cadet from New York on July 1, 1822. Upon graduation he received an appointment as a second lieutenant in the Fifth Infantry, July 1, 1827. He was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant November 25, 1835, and received his commission as captain, November 1, 1838. The Post Returns of Fort Crawford for November, 1838, show that Captain Lacey acted as commandant of Fort Crawford for a short time during the temporary absence of the regular commandant, Brigadier General George M. Brooke. Captain Lacey died at Fort Crawford April 2, 1839. — Heitman's Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, Vol. I, p610; Post Returns, Fort Crawford, 1831‑1856, November, 1838, in the Adjutant General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C.

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